A History of the World in 100 Objects comes to China

Lin Qi

The acclaimed exhibition A History of the World in 100 Objects is on at the National Museum of China in Beijing. It features a few Chinese treasure.

Since A History of the World in 100 Objects started a global tour in 2014 it has attracted more than 1 million visitors in cities including Abu Dhabi, Tokyo and Canberra.

The exhibition, which evolved from a radio programme jointly produced by the British Museum and the BBC in 2010, and which is on in Beijing until 31 May, is causing quite a stir. Nine Chinese objects, including a 3,000-year-old bronze ritual vessel and a Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) blue-and-white plate, are on show, although there is disappointment about the absence of the Admonitions Scroll, a precious 6th-century Chinese painting, which was featured in the radio programme.

The 100-episode radio series introduced one object from the British Museum’s collection in each show and navigated innovations in art, technology and industry spanning different cultures, over the course of two million years of human history.

When the programme was first broadcast it was followed by 11 million listeners. And now you can download the broadcasts from a website devoted to the project.

Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum, said the exhibition shows forces that pushed humans beyond the horizon of Africa, and it shows that globalisation is a “powerful development” and “a process that cannot be turned back or halted”.

It is wonderful for the British Museum to be able to share such a global collection, he said, ranging from the inner coffin of Egyptian king Shepenmehyt from 600 BC to a solar-power lamp and charger produced in Shenzhen, China, in 2010.

“The British Museum is a museum of the world, and for the world,” Mr Fischer said. “We are the biggest lender among all big museums. We have profited from globalisation and we are a dynamic factor in the process. This is what we want to continue.”

Some of the objects from the original exhibition have been changed because a lot of things featured in the original radio series are too fragile to be moved or even put on display in galleries, said Belinda Crerar, the British Museum’s curator of the exhibition.

“We want to keep it [the touring exhibition] as close to the original series as possible, but sometimes an object cannot be displayed for conservation reasons, and at other times it is because of the huge scale [of objects],” she said. “So, we try to look for objects in the collection that can maintain the narrative of the original series.

Bull fighter: statue of MithrasCredit:
Jang Dong/China Daily

“In some cases, when that is not possible, we have added new objects and new stories.”

The absence of the Admonitions Scroll is due to the fragile condition of its silk support and its cracked paint.

When the exhibition tours it features a 101st object, which the host museums provide and is pertinent to local audiences. The Beijing leg features a wooden hammer and a pen used to mark China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

The exhibition will travel to the Shanghai Museum in June, and the museum is inviting suggestions on what the 101st object should be.

Ms Crerar said that when viewers compare objects representing different cultures they will find similarities in many cases. “What it [the exhibition] showcases are universal concerns and the needs of humanity that are manifested in different parts of the world, in different times, but in a very similar way.”

Yan Zhi, the exhibition’s co-curator from the National Museum of China, said the format of the A History of the World series inspired Chinese museum curators in terms of how to make use of their collections, and how to use digital technology to better communicate with the public.

Ms Crerar said about 7 million people visited the British Museum last year, and about 5 per cent were Chinese, which she calls “a significant proportion”. The British Museum provides guide books and tours in Chinese, and has a Chinese-language website and a WeChat account.

Chen Chengjun, deputy director of the National Museum of China, said that a catalogue of Chinese artefacts in the British Museum is being compiled. Images of the featured objects have been finalised and Chinese and British experts are working on the text, he said. He hopes the volume will be published within the year.

The volume will be the third in a publishing project called Selected Ancient Chinese Objects in Overseas Museums.

This article was originally produced and published by China Daily. View the original article at chinadaily.com